Cracking the Zero Mystery: How the U.S. Learned to Beat Japan's Vaunted World War II Fighter Plane

by Jim Rearden

Book Overview

For six months after Pearl Harbor the nimble Japanese Zero-sen plane dominated the Pacific air war. Then, on June 4, 1942 a Zero crashed on tiny Akutan Island in the Aleutians. It lay there for five weeks until spotted by an American plane. Hauled back to California, the Zero revealed its secrets in a series of tests and analyses. Fast, but lacking protection for the pilot as well as a self-sealing gas tank which all U.S. planes had, the Zero lost...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 081172235X
• ISBN13: 9780811722353
• Release Date: February 2018
• Publisher: Stackpole Books
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.4" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Cracking the Zero Mystery

This book is a soft cover production, and explains how the United States Navy recovered a downed Japanese Zero fighter plane in the Alaskan theater near Dutch Harbor. The Zero was nearly intact. It was then shipped on a Navy transport ship to the US Navy base at North Island, San Diego. There the Zero was restored to flying condition in about six weeks, and was test flown to determine its combat performance characteristics. Most importantly, it was subsequently flown in mock air combat against US fighter planes. These tests allowed the US military air arms to properly fight the Zero and win. Prior to capturing the Zero specimen, the Zero proved to be a superior fighter in the early stages of WWII in the Pacific. Using tactics developed during the mock combat sessions, and the emergence of newer Navy fight planes such as the Grumman Hellcat and the Chance-Vought Corsair, the Zero was decisively defeated in later air battles. This short book describes this story quite well.

Best narrative of an important captured Aircraft

I highly enjoyed this book and it make a very valuable addition to a WWII reader's library. To understand the Zero is to understand the Japanese war machine. Like the German counterpart, the BF-109, it would have been impossible for Japan to have had such a successful record from the period of 1941 until late in 1942. My favorite part of the book was the recovery and repair of the Zero from the Alaskan bog. Had Koga not landed with his wheels down then he would have survived and had the ability to destroy the Zero. Conversely, since the Zero had flipped upside down his comrades in the other fighters were loathe to machine gun the aircraft into flames. The whole recovery of the Zero is sheer luck. A plane slightly off course discovers the wreck. The US Navy jumps at the chance to recover the aircraft. Note, it's best the US Navy had found the wreck. The wing spars were intregal to the aircraft and a prior US Army salvage wrecked that captured aircraft. The Navy ships the Zero to San Diego, the craft is rebuilt, and it plays a staring role in giving the US military intelligence into combating the Zero. What is missing is a lack of performance data on the various models of the Zero. Example, the early models of the Zeros were not in the same class as the later models. Example, the never exceed speed of the later Zeros was only slightly less in a dive than the F4U Cosair. The Zero had a much better turning ability than the heavier US fighter. If the Japanese had a pilot training program to match that of the development of the Zero then the debacles of 1944 and 1945 may not have been in such heavy US favor. I was very happy with the "fly off" chapters against various American fighters. I thought it quite curious that Koga's Zero was always in excellent flying shape but the American machines were often plagued with mechanical faults. Was this to be future shades of the problems the American Automotive manufacturers were to face against the Japanese Automotive manufacturers? The reader can draw their own conclusion but this is not the first time I've read about the maintenance problems with American fighters and the better ease of maintenance with the Zero, BF-109, FW-190, and almost any of the Soviet Machines. But the point is Koga's Zero was flow against the best fighters the USA had and it gave good performance, often superior to the American machines. The lenghty write up of the salvage of the Zero is not boring. Koga is given a decent burial and the removal of his body from the Zero is a little distasteful to read. Such is war. I was surprised to learn the Japanese 20mm cannons were largely scaled up copies of the US M-2 machine gun and a Navy Petty Officer is able to field strip the weapons in the bog to the great amusement of his fellow sailors, they razz him of his prior service in the Imperial Japanese Navy. That was light reading after Koga's body removal. I will have to agree with a prior reviewer that this

Substantial Story About The Zero.

"Cracking The Zero Mystery" by Jim Rearden. Sub-titled: "How The U.S. Learned To Beat Japan's Vaunted WWII Fighter Plane" Stackpole Books, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 1990. In June 1942, the Imperial Japanese Navy feinted towards the Aleutian Islands off Alaska, in an attempt to draw U.S. Navy forces away from the impending battle of Midway. One result of this IJN thrust towards Alaska, was that Flight Petty Officer Tadayoshi Koga crashed his Zero into a muddy bog on Akutan Island, some twenty five miles East of Dutch Harbor, Alaska. Because the Zero was crashed in Alaska, Jim Rearden became interested in writing its story. The back cover of the book notes that, after the War, Mr. Rearden "...moved to Alaska to teach wildlife management at the University of Alaska". His devotion to things Alaskan is evident in his book chapters dealing with the crashed Zero in Alaska. In fact, in my humble opinion, those chapters are most interesting in this small book, only 128 pages, (including the index). The author, Jim Rearden, has done a lot of research into the pilot of the Zero, Petty Officer Tadayoshi Koga, using Japanese sources who were happy to help. The author also tracked down the Americans who were involved in the discovery of the crashed Zero, July 1942, and its subsequent recovery, and, if these people were still alive, obtained their personal remembrances about the events. Finally, to cap it all off, using "...three Navy photos of the downed plane"...(p. 110), Rearden was able to locate the actual crash site and the then empty grave of Petty Officer Koga. This was a rather poignant chapter of the book. The least interesting chapter (even though I am a retired engineer), was the Appendix which compared Koga's Zero with contemporary U.S. Fighter planes. This appendix read too much like an engineering report. Mr. Rearden saw fit to add chapters dealing with the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, the importance of the Battle of Midway and the impact of the Zero on the war in then Pacific. I felt that they these chapters were somewhat unnecessary for a book of this type. So, five stars for the excellent research, four stars for the good writing, and three stars for the superfluous history. Average is four stars.